Pre-cut stencils capable of defining three distinct stencil areas



July 1 1955 N. R. ROGERSON 3,194,153

PRE-CUT STENCILS CAPABLE OF DEFINING THREE DISTINCT STENCIL AREAS Filed March 19, 1962 INV EN TOR.

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BY & 1 m w WU/F/ EY United States Patent V 3 194,153 PRE-CUT STENCILS CAPABLE 6F DEFINING THREE DISTINCT. STENCIL AREAS Norman R. Rogerson, 38 Bowdoin St, Houlton, Maine Filed Mar. 19, 1962, Ser. No. 180,723 8 Claims. (Cl. Hill-123.1)

This invention relates to stencils and more particularly to pre-cut stencils that may be used with air blasting and other decorative procedures.

For many years the ornamentation of memorial stones has been done with hand hammers and chisels. More recently, power chisels have been used and even more recently air blast procedures have been used. When air blasting to form a letter or decoration on stone, stencils of blast resistant material such as rubber sheeting are secured to the areas of stone that are not desired to be exposed to the effects of air blasting. Prior to this invention, the stencils have been laboriously hand cut and applied, removed and re-applied and again laboriously cut by hand to produce the many dilferent decorative effects that may be desired. For example, if a letter on a polished stone is desired to have a whitened body with a deeply engraved or etched outline, a stencil sheet is first applied to the polished stone surface and a stencil portion corresponding to the desired letter is cut and removed by hand following which the exposed surface is subjected to a light air blasting with steel shot or the like suflicient to whiten the exposed surface. Thereafter, the removed stencil portion is re-applied to the whitened surface and small portions of the re-applied stencil are hand cut and removed along the outer edge of the previously cut stencil areas to thereby expose an outline along the whitened letter stone surface. Thereafter, such exposed outline surfaces are subjected to further air blasting using an abrasive such as sand sufficient to etch or deeply engrave the desired outlines for the whitened letter on the polished stone surface. In other stone ornamentation procedure-s, the outer portion of a stencil sheet overlaying the stone surface and surrounding the desired outline of ornamentation may be removed to expose other desired portions of the stone surface to decorative treatment. Still other procedures for using stencils in stone memorial ornamentation are known but need not be described in detail at this time,

It is an object of this invention to provide an improved pre-cut stencil that may be readily used with any of the various known different ornamentation procedures.

Another important object of this invention is to provide an improved pre-cut stencil that is particularly useful in ornamenting stone memorials with improved precision and speed and having improved blast resistant properties to any of the known air blast ornamentation techniques.

It is yet another object of this invention to provide a pre-cut stencil that maybe used to provide outline engraving of the desired ornamentaiton or that may alternatively be used to provide solid background or solid figure ornamentation on stone with .air blast techniques.

According to the invention, a pre-cut stencil sheet of air and sand blast resistant material such as rubber or rubber composition is provided with double spaced cuts produced by a die or the like along the desired outline or outlines corresponding to the desired letter of design configuration. Thus the pre-c-ut stencil may be applied to a surface to be ornamented and any one of the stencil portions defined by the double cuts may be removed or re-applied in any desired sequence. Since the stencil is pre-cut with the use of dies, a greater thickness of stencil sheet may be employed giving improved air blast resistance. To further facilitate the use of the stencil of the invention, .a layer of adhesive such as any of the wellknown pressure sensitive adhesives may be applied to one surface of the stencil and further, if desired, a removable protective sheet of plastic or the like may be secured to the exposed adhesive layer to protect the stencil until use. It. is preferable that the cuts in the stencil sheet do not extend through either the adhesive layer or the protective sheet as will be further understood from the following description of the invention taken in connection with the drawing in which:

FIGURE 1 is a plan view;

FIGURE 2 is a section taken on the line 2 2 of FIG- URE 1; and

FIGURE 3 is a plan view of the stencil of the invention as it may be used to form the letter B.

Referring to FIGURES 1 and 2 of the drawing, the pre-cut stencil of the invention is comprised ofa r-ubber composition sheet or the like iii. In place of rubber or rubber compositions other sheet material having the requisite properties to resist the eifect of air blast ornamentation techniques or acid etching or any other ornamentation technique may be used. In the form of the invention being illustrated, it is assumed that the desired ornamentation is a religious cross. In accordance with the invention, the outline of the cross isproduced on the stencil sheet 10 by means of double cuts 11 and 12. These cuts may be produced in any suitable manner but it has been found that a die cutting procedure is effective and the cuts are formed into the one or upper surface of the stencil sheet 19 to a depth substantially equal to the thickness of the sheet. Since the cuts 11 and 12 are preferably produced by a die cutting operation practically any desired thickness of stencil sheet 10 may be employed.

It will be seen that the double cuts 111 and 12 in the stencil sheet .10 subdivide the stencil sheet into a plurality of areas such as the area 12', the area 13 and the area 14, any of which may be selectively removed from contact with its surrounding area in any desired sequence.

The undersurfiace of the stencil sheet 16' may be coated with a layer of pressure sensitive adhesive 15 or any of the well-known types commercially available and often referred to as rubber cement. In addition, when desired, the exposed adhesive layer 15 may be covered with a temporary protective sheet layer to of plastic, paper or other suitable materials. It should be understood that the double cuts 11 and 12 do not extend into the adhesive layer 15 and protective layer 16 when used.

FIGURE 3 illustrates how the double cut stencil of the invention may be formed when employed to resemble the leter B and it will be seen that the double cut formation includes cuts 26 20, 21 21 and 2:2 22 into the stencil sheet so that separately removable stencil areas 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29 are formed.

In using the novel pre-cut stencil of the invention such as, for example the religious cross stencil shown by FIG- URE l, the protective layer 16 is first carefully removed to expose the adhesive surface 15. The stencil sheet 10 may then be afiixed to the surface to be ornamented such as a polished stone surface or a memorial stone. Thereafter, any one of the stencil areas 12, 13 or 14 may be removed in any desired sequence to expose a desired surface for air blast treatment either with steel shot or sand or other abrasive materials. After a preliminary air blast treatment, for example, one of the stencil areas 12', 13 or 514 may be reafiixed to the surface of the stone leaving different stone areas exposed for further air blast treatment. It may be desirable to coat the surface of the stone to which selected stencil areas are to be re-applied with additional adhesive material such as a rubber filler cement or the like. Thereafter, additional air blast procedure may be employed to the differently exposed areas of the stone to produce additional ornamental effects.

One example of a technique for producing a whitened cross on a stone surface with a deeply etched outline would be as follows. The entire stencil sheet is first applied to the stone surface and the areas 13 and 14 are removed along the cut line 11. Thereafter, a light air blasting of steel shot may be projected against the exposed stone surface to whiten such stone surface. After this step, the removed stencil areas 13 and 14 are re-applied to the whitened area and then the stencil area 13 is removed along the cut lines 11 and 12 thus exposing the outline of the whitened area for further air blasting with heavy abrasive material to thus produce the deeply etched outline as desired. Alternatively, only the stencil area 14 may be replaced on the whitened surface by removing the stencil area 13 prior to re-applying the stencil material to the stone surface.

Obviously the stencil areas 12', 13 and 14 may be removed and re-applied in any desired sequence as often as desired for producing the desired ornamental effects in accordance with various known techniques. One further example of a different ornamental technique to which the pre-cut stencil of the invention is particularly adapted would be removing the entire outer stencil area 12' so that a background surrounding the desired outline may be exposed on the stone surface for heavy abrasive air blasting. Thereafter, the stencil areas 12', 13 and 14 may be variously re-applied and removed to produce additional ornamental effects as desired.

Although in its preferred form the pro-cut stencil of the invention has been shown to include an adhesive layer 15 and adhesive protective layer 16, it should be obvious that either one or both of these layers may be omitted and the stencil may be applied by using temporary adhesive coatings on the surface to be ornamented. It should therefore be understood that the scope of the invention includes any pre-cut stencil made of tough and resistant sheet material having the desired outline formed by double stencil cuts.

Since as previously mentioned the double stencil cuts can be produced by a die cutting procedure, it is apparent that stencil sheet 10 may be made of thick and resilient material to resist high air blast pressures. hand cut stencil which could not be made of a requisite thickness to resist the higher air blast pressures which might be desirable in order to increase the efficiency of the ornamentation procedures. Obviously the invention 'may be used for other ornamentation procedures than the stantially continuous cuts into one surface of the stencil sheet along a desired stencil outline with the cuts spaced This has not been possible with the previous from one another along the desired outline by predetermined amounts to form at least three separate and distinct stencil areas, one or more of which may be selectively removed independently of the others.

2. The stencil of claim 1 in which the stencil sheet is comprised of rubber composition having a thickness to resist the effects of the air blast and other decorative procedures.

3. A pre-cut stencil for use with air blast and other decorative procedures comprising, a sheet of stencil material having properties to resist the effects of the air blast and other decorative procedures, at least two substantial- 1y continuous cuts into one surface of the stencil sheet along a desired stencil outline with the cuts spaced from one another along the desired outline by predetermined amounts to form at least three separate and distinct stencil areas, one or more of which may be selectively removed independently of the others, and a layer of adhesive secured to the other surface of said stencil sheet.

4. The stencil of claim 3 in which the stencil sheet is comprised of rubber composition having a thickness to resist the effects of the air blast and other decorative procedures.

5. The stencil of claim 3 in which the double cuts into the one surface of the stencil sheet do not extend into the layer of adhesive secured to the other surface of the stencil sheet.

6. A pre-cut stencil for use with air blast and other decorative procedures comprising, a sheet of stencil material having properties to resist the elfects of the air blast and other decorative procedures, double substantially continuous cuts into one surface of the stencil sheet along a desired stencil outline with the cuts spaced from one another along the desired outline by predetermined amounts to form three separate and distinct stencil areas, one or more of which may be selectively removed independently of the others, a, layer of adhesive secured to the other surface of said stencil sheet, and a removable protective layer of sheet material secured to the exposed surface of the layer of adhesive.

7. The stencil of claim 6 in which the stencil sheet is comprised of rubber composition having a thickness to resist the effects of the air blast and other decorative procedures.

8. The stencil of claim 6 in which the double cuts into the one surface of the stencil sheet do not extend into the layer of adhesive and protective layer secured to the other surface of the stencil sheet.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,162,786 12/15 Kieke 101399 2,199,980 5/40 Beehee. 2,251,647 8/41 Wartha. 2,520,567 8/50 Schlief 101128 2,651,989 9/53 Kerr 101127 DAVID KLEIN, Primary Examiner.

WlLLllAM B. PENN, Examiner. 

6. A PRE-CUT STENCIL FOR USE WITH AIR BLAST AND OTHER DECORATIVE PROCEDURES COMPRISING, A SHEET OF STENCIL MATERIAL HAVING PROPERTIES TO RESIST THE EFFECTS OF THE AIR BLAST AND OTHER DECORATIVE PROCEDURES, DOUBLE SUBSTANTIALLY CONTINUOUS CUTS INTO ONE SURFACE OF THE STENCIL SHEET ALONG A DESIRED STENCIL OUTLINE WITH THE CUTS SPACED FROM ONE ANOTHER ALONG THE DESIRED OUTLINE BY PREDETERMINED AMOUNTS TO FORM THREE SEPARATE AND DISTINCT STENCIL AREAS, ONE OR MORE OF WHICH MAY BE SELECTIVELY REMOVED INDEPENDENTLY OF THE OTHERS, A LAYER OF ADHESIVE SECURED TO THE OTHER SURFACE OF SAID STENCIL SHEET, AND A REMOVABLE PROTECTIVE LAYER OF SHEET MATERIAL SECURED TO THE EXPOSED SURFACE OF THE LAYER OF ADHESIVE. 